Delmar Wildcat senior guard Larry Ennis was returning to Wicomico High School where he had played for three years prior to joining his new team this year. He and the Wildcats faced off against the Parkdale Panthers — a team from Prince George’s County who were in town for the Governor’s Challenge.

The Panthers had different plans in mind for this game though. They entered with a losing record and needed to get to the .500 mark. After holding Ennis to four points in the first half and after a fast start, a 12-3 run in the third quarter propelled them to a lead that they rode till the final buzzer as they beat the Wildcats 90-75.

“We didn’t really know anything about them other than their coach (Tim Velasco) was somebody who I played high school ball with,” Panthers head coach Tremaine Price said. “So I knew that he would have a quality team and I just wanted us to be aggressive. We have had trouble closing out games so I was really pleased that we were able to keep the lead.”

The Panthers (3-3) lost their lead just once and it came after Delmar guard Kavon Trader hit a three pointer in the first quarter. The Wildcats (3-2) began to miss shots and fall behind from there though, and the Panthers started getting into their groove by running the floor and crashing the boards to get easy buckets.

Up-tempo is the style that both teams like to play in, but with Delmar falling behind early they began to look sluggish and were unable to keep up with the Panthers on either end of the floor.

“We came out pretty flat and we didn’t have much intensity,” Wildcats’ senior guard Shane Leatherbury said.

The Wildcats waited till the very end to turn up the intensity, scoring 27 points in the fourth quarter, but on a few occasions they were too intense. Ennis and Trader both picked up technical fouls in the final period after using choice words towards Panthers’ players.

“If we had played like that from the start we would’ve been a lot better,” Leatherbury said. “It’s good that we didn’t give up though, maybe that will carry over to the next game.”

The inability to defend the 3-point shot played a major factor in the Wildcats’ loss as well. Panthers’ junior guard Gregg Boydd hit seven shots from behind the arc on his way to finishing with 25 points, seven assists and three steals.

After a poor first half, Ennis bounced back and hit shots from the 3-point line as well, making a pair of them in the fourth quarter as he led all Wildcat scorers with 22 points to pair along with his four rebounds and four assists. Trader finished with 17 points before fouling out in the final quarter and Leatherbury ended the game with 16 points, six rebounds and four assists.

The Wildcats will take on a more familiar opponent tomorrow in Stephen Decatur (3-3; 1-2) who lost to Aberdeen earlier in the day at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center.

“We just have to play our game, have high intensity and start running,” Leatherbury said looking forward to tomorrow’s game. “If we start knocking down shots early we’ll be alright.”